A Monster in Lake Champlain (video too..)

A freakishly large leech ??

Looks like the tail of a fish to me. Probably a really big fish, I'm not familiar with the lakes naturally occurring fish. But I would guess it is something that was introduced that can't spawn for some reason. The video looks like a tail that is split down the middle. I've seen lots of big freshwater fish (gar, pike, sturgeon and a paddle fish once). And the creature was behaved like an exceptionally large fish.

From what I noticed in freshwater fish, when they reach a size much larger than there average size. They tend to move really slowly, and behave allot differently. Floating just below the surface, turning in all different directions. Now, I am no biologist, but I think it is because of their swim bladder. Something must happen to it when the fish reaches an enormous size that causing such erratic behavior. I'm going to look up the fish for that lake and see if I can match that tail to one.

That is my two cents.

EDIT: After a little research I decided that it was a lake sturgeon.

If you noticed in the video, when they pause it, there are white stripes that line the tip of the creature shown.

In this picture of a lake sturgeon you can see that lake sturgeon have white tips on their fins. And the tail fin is forked shape.



And in this picture it shows lake sturgeon swimming just under the water surface. That may contribute to the strange water disturbances.



So I decided that the "Champ" shown in the video is a Lake Sturgeon that has grown to immense size.

Any thoughts.......

That was pretty interesting.

Msouth, keep us updated on what you find, eh?

Lila

I was thinking it was a pike. But, the coloration of a pike didn't match to well with the creature shown. They do have the white lines on their fins, and hunt close to the surface of the water. But they are a bit brighter colored than the creature in the video. Lake sturgeon matches the color better.

I couldn't see the detail very well in the video. So I wasn't sure if I was looking at a tail or something else.

Sturgeons do grow to immense sizes, so I wouldn't be surprised. But even these 'serious and respected' fishermen weren't sure as to what they were seeing.

After all these years...and they still haven't had better sightings of it? How big is that lake?

Lila

Taken from worldlakes.org

Physical Characteristics

Description The lake drains a watershed encompassing 21 326 km2, 56% of which is in Vermont, 37% in New York, and 7% in Quebec. Nearly half of the state of Vermont lies within the basin compared to less than 10% of either New York or Quebec (Lake Champlain Basin Program 1996). The lake’s drainage area to surface area ratio is remarkably high, 19:1. Land cover in the watershed is generally dominated by forested land (62%), agricultural land (28%), urban land (3%), and water (7%) (Budd and Meals 1994), although recent data shows that urban land has expanded to 5% (Hegman et al. 1999).

Volume 25.80 km3

Surface Area 1,127.00 km2

Depth Mean depth: 19.5 m
Maximum depth: 122.0 m

Residence Time 3.3 years

Age 0 - 10,000 years before present

Origin Glacial

Trophic State Mesotrophic

Type Fresh
Permanent
Natural

Catchment Catchment size: 21,326.00 km2
Catchment/surface area ratio: 19:1

Here is the best map I could find of the lake. The lake is outlined in yellow.



So it is a large lake, I think fourth in America.

Sturgeons are deep water fish, that is probably why there are not more sightings.

Oh, I think I remember they wanted to make this one of the Great Lakes. Huh! Glad they didn't.

Thanks.

No problem

I would call and tell someone about what I found. But I don't think they would listen to me.

I would, msouth